The Learning Curve
It is a cliché today to refer to a “steep learning
curve” to indicate that something is difficult to learn.
In practice, a curve of the amount learned against the number
of trials (in experiments) or over time (in reality) is
just the opposite: if something is difficult, the line rises
slowly or shallowly. So the steep curve refers to the demands
of the task rather than a description of the process. As the figure of a fairly typical learning “curve” shows,
it does not proceed smoothly: the plateau and troughs are
normal features of the process.
In the acquisition of skills, a major issue is the reliability
of the performance. Any novice can get it right occasionally
(beginner’s luck), but it is consistency which counts,
and the progress of learning is often assessed on this basis.
The following stages are an adaptation of
Reynolds’
(1965) model. She also points out that learning skills is
largely a matter of them “soaking in”, so that performance becomes
less self-conscious as learning progresses, and that the transition
from one phase to another is marked by a release of energy,
in the form of the freedom to concentrate on other things. (The
horizontal line represents a notional threshold of “competence”)
She also suggests that the final phase (which I have referred
to as “Second Nature”) is characterized by an ability to teach
the skill. At earlier stages, the learner is not confident
enough to analyze their own practice thoroughly enough to be
able to teach it: there is a feeling of mystique and fragility
—if I examine it too closely I might not be able to perform as
well again.
There is an interesting distinction to be
drawn between learning which follows this pattern, and that in
which increasing sophistication and expertise is characterized
by increasing
reflection
— in the one case the better you get the less you think about it
(as in driving or typing), in the other the better you get the
more you think about it (as in teaching, or perhaps selling). I
suspect that it is not the skill itself which draws this
distinction, but the degree of uncertainty in the immediate
environment.
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